A Few Tricks to Help Avoid Holiday Food Temptation
As joyous as the holidays can be, they can be challenging as well. Temptations of the holidays can be trying even for those who have a good deal of willpower. To gain the upper hand on temptation, the idea shouldn’t be to strengthen your willpower. Instead, it should be about arranging things in your life to make forceful willpower unnecessary.
Buy snacks in small packages – Studies indicate that when you have a large package of food, you will usually help yourself to a larger quantity of the contents than you would if the package was small. To make sure that you aren’t tempted to grab large helpings of snacks placed in front of you, all you need to do is to buy them in the smallest package sizes that you can find. Of course, you can buy the big bag and portion the contents into snack size bags (because this is more economical, right?) but if this is an opportunity to “have just a couple”, avoid this temptation as well. Know thyself!
Make it hard to help yourself – If you don’t have to bake Christmas cookies, don’t! Keep the temptation out of your house. But, if you do for some reason, store them and any foods that tempt you in a place that’s not easy to get to, i.e., a freezer downstairs or on a high shelf in the pantry. If you must go down a flight of stairs or drag a chair over, you’re less likely to give in. Making foods inconvenient to eat can be an effective deterrent.
Brush your teeth – If you’ve always brushed your teeth the last thing before bedtime each night, it could be time to change your routine. After dinner, if you have a couple of hours before bedtime, you may be tempted to snack. Instead, you can try brushing your teeth right after dinner, or any meal, for that matter. When your teeth are nice and clean, you won’t be tempted to get food into your mouth again.
Abstain, rather than be moderate with food – If you tell yourself that you get reasonable portions of all the nice things that you like to eat, chances are that you won’t be able to stop yourself. Rather than trying to stick to moderate portions, it’s a good idea to abstain altogether. When you abstain, your willpower stays stronger.
Wear snug-fitting clothes – If you’re worried about overeating at a holiday party, choose to dress in clothes that are snug. If your clothes are tight, you’ll be aware of your comfort level and won’t eat as much.
Tell yourself that you get only one helping – It’s much easier to keep track of what you eat when you don’t get to refill your plate. Tell yourself that once the food on your plate is gone, you don’t get to go back for more of anything.
Temptation can be much harder to fight during the holidays when there is a constant parade of delicious food in front of you, but a few psychological tricks can help you keep things under control.
